


In Bitter Victory

by weaselett



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-19
Updated: 2014-08-19
Packaged: 2018-02-13 21:46:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2166318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weaselett/pseuds/weaselett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Avengers/Hunger Games Fusion.<br/>The 75th Hunger Games are meant to pit victor against victor, but they have other plans. (Steve focus, various other avengers appear).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Macdragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Macdragon/gifts).



The Capitol had never been a pretty place, never been the jewel that its people considered it to be. Steve could remember the first time he’d glimpsed the gleaming towers, his face pressed against the window as he struggled to take in the sight. His mother had been born in the Capitol, but his father had somehow managed to tempt her away to District Five. Even after almost thirty years Steve missed District Five, missed the dull greys and the smell of too many people too close together. 

Standing on the balcony of his apartment, he could see down into the street where people were starting to gather in preparation for the announcement. It was worse than most years, when people gathered mostly in the squares in their social groups, excited to see what excitement the latest reaping would bring. This year, people wanted to be as close to the president as they could get, even if it meant suffering the indignity of the packed streets. 

Steve shook his head, turning away from the crowd and stepping back into the main room of his little apartment. Bucky shifted his weight on the low couch, turning his head towards Steve, glass of whiskey clasped in his hand, his gaze already a little glazed by an afternoon of drinking. Steve sighed, lowering himself onto the couch beside Bucky, ignoring the half empty bottle on the floor in front of him. It never helped, and it was best that one of them was sober, until later. 

Cheering erupted from the crowd in the street, the Panem anthem just audible over the roar. The television flickered on in the corner of the room and Steve sighed, leaning into Bucky’s embrace and closing his eyes. 

It was time for another Quarter Quell.

-

“Look at them,” Carol, the only other surviving victor from District Five gestured angrily at the crowd waiting beneath the platform. “They know exactly what’s about to happen, we all do, and yet they still felt the need to ship you back here.” 

“You know the Capitol.” Steve replied, searching the crowd for a familiar face. He hadn’t been home in years, he had no family left, no one to draw him back, and standing in front of a crowd of strangers he hated himself for it. It wasn’t their fault that Peggy was gone, wasn’t their fault that the Capitol had done everything in their power to ensure that he’d survived so they had a victor to show off to the world. 

“All about the performance.” Carol muttered, glaring at the representative of the Capitol, standing between the two fish bowls. The peacekeepers all had their hands as close to their weapons as possible, weary of both the crowd and the two infamous victors. 

“Hell yeah, and that’s exactly what we’re going to use against them.” Steve flashed his best smile at the head peacekeeper, enjoying the way the man squirm. The Capitol wasn’t going to get what it wanted so easy this year. In the past they’d had lost little kids being dragged off to slaughter, the victors had been limited in what they could do to help their tributes. This year, it was the victors against the Capitol, and Steve knew that wasn’t something the President was ready for. 

-

“The absolute worst taste.” Janet complained, tugging at the sack that her stylist had sewn her into, the cloth pale against her dark skin. “Years I’ve spent designing new fashions for the Capitol, and they won’t let me design my own outfit for this stupid spectacle.” 

“Perhaps they believe that allowing you to design your own outfit would give you an unfair advantage.” T’Challa commented dryly from his position to Steve’s left. The man was almost invisible in the near darkness of the tunnel, his stylist going for the typical chunk of coal option for the District Twelve tributes. The same was true for the majority of the other district’s stylists, few of the costumes standing out from any that had come before. 

“Nothing to stop us from doing some of our own edits.” Bobbi, scantily dressed in a mermaid outfit held up a collection of oddments, waving them at Janet, “I’m sure we can manage to make this display a little more interesting for everyone.”

Steve watched, leaning against the side of his and Carol’s chariot, Bucky his silent companion, as the women edited their outfits making a mockery of what their stylists had created. The youngest tributes hang back, watching with wide eyes. They haven’t been sucked into the world of the other victors, aren’t old friends long disillusioned and worn down by watching children they’ve trained head off to die while the Capitol celebrated. 

It wasn’t long before they were separated and herded towards their chariots, stressed stylists flittering on the fringes in horror at what had been done. Steve slipped an arm around Carol’s hips, enjoying the heat from her skin and the glowing costume their stylist had created. It’s a comfort, to have the others with him in this, to not be facing the arena again alone. 

Steve straightened as their Chariot moved out, letting his arm drop, fixing his expression, letting all of the world see what he thought of the Capitol and their games. They were wrong if they thought that their treasured victors would go down without a hard fight. The Capitol would feel their anger, their betrayal, and they would care this time. It wasn’t just some nameless children that they would happily bet on, every victor had people in the Capitol who cared for them. They were precious commodities after all. 

-

No one, not even the newest, shiniest tributes take the training seriously. They all know how each of the others won their games, from Natasha who won in record time to Tony who won by building himself a protective suit. The vast majority of them had trained other tributes as well, had learned to spot hidden talents in others. 

They spend the time giving the appearance of training, old rivalries flaring up. There were tributes that Steve knew would treat the games just the same, despite who they were facing, because they have no interest in changing the status quo. They’re happy to be victors, with all the riches that come with it, but at the same time, they might not mind so very much if they die in the arena. After all, it’s not like any of them have ever really left their arenas. 

Steve attaches himself to Sam, victor of the seventy third games, and shows him a few new tricks, studiously avoiding Bucky and Natasha. None of them were about to show their hands, beyond petty displays of anger, not as long as the Capitol had time to plan against them. 

When it came to facing the Gamemakers Steve settled for breaking a spear over his knee then sitting silently on the floor, staring up at them until they had him herded out. He had no interest in what score he was given. No score would change what was to come. 

-

Bucky was the fourth to be called onto the stage, and no one was surprised that the focus was on the fact that Bucky won the last Quarter Quell. Bucky alone had faced such high numbers and come out the other side. The interview was mostly one sided, Bucky offering little in reply to any of the questions. 

No one asked a victor about the price they paid, but they always reminded them of the lives lost. The lives they had taken. 

Steve listened as Carol charmed the crowd, detailing all the things that she had done to aid the Capitol. Steve allowed himself a small smile as the crowd made distressed noises, Carol’s words building on what others had offered earlier. 

He walked out on command, his best publicity smile on his face and waved to the crowd, charm personified. He is Panem’s glorious, shining victor of the fifth annual Hunger Games; A living example of the lengths that the people of the Capitol will go to to have a victor to parade around as a reminder of their power. 

Steve watched as members of the audience cried, faced with losing him. It was hard not to hate them, for their naïve and shallow love of the luxury they had. At least with their victors being sent off to the arena, they would get a taste of what life was like for the districts. 

Steve joined Carol and the others, standing impassively as the interviews continued, the podiums slowly filling. They all stand in silence, twenty four men and women standing in judgement over the Capitol as the lights over them dimmed to nothing, the audience frozen in place under the weight of their combined anger. 

It isn’t enough to stop the games. 

They never expected it to.


	2. Chapter 2

-

Steve listened to the cannons on the first night, closing his eyes rather than watching as familiar faces appeared on the sky above. Jane huddled against his side, her bundle of wires digging into him. There were four of them in Steve’s group, a little bloody from the initial fight, but intact enough that Steve was confident of pressing on with the plan. 

Somewhere, hidden in the ruins, waited Bucky, Tony and the others. They had spent years working together, trying everything they could to help make the arena easier for their districts tributes, but they were done. They would not guide anymore children to their deaths, but they would get out of the arena and rain hell down on the Capitol. 

They just needed to figure out the weak points of the arena, and match them against what Tony and Jane knew. Then work vaguely enough that on one in the Capitol would realise what they were intending. Steve hoped that their allies hidden in the political sphere of the Capitol would hold true to their promises. 

When the new day dawned, Steve took in the eerily familiar ground. The last battle of the war had been fought on the site that they had picked for their third Quarter Quell. Steve doubted there were many others who could remember it. He wondered, briefly, if that was why the site had been chosen, after all, he was always going to be one of the victors sentenced to return to the arena.

Steve guided the others to a dry creek bed, Clint guarding the rear while Carol helped Jane along. Tell-tale marks in the mud told of Bucky’s group, moved on hours before, leaving only a few scraps of metal behind. The cannon sounded twice as they trailed the other group, but none of them flinched. It was never going to be a bloodless game, the Capitol would never have allowed such a thing.

They skirted a lake, filled with false hope, a light mist dancing on its surface. Clint dipped an arrow in and laughed as he was left with just a shaft, steam rising from the newly blunt end. Jane fiddled with her wires, shaping her device whenever they stopped, her mind focused on her task rather than her surroundings. Her victory had always been a wonder to the Capitol, but as he watched her work, Steve recognised the set of her shoulders. Given a task, Jane would do everything in her power to complete it. 

Tony’s invention, the missing component of Jane’s work lay exactly where they expected it. It wasn’t difficult for them to act as though they expected it to explode, putting on a play of remembering Tony’s old tricks, and persuading Jane to try and disarm the threat. 

It’s child’s play in the end. Breaking down the force field and hurrying on the short distance to where the others are waiting. The hovercraft arrives as promised in the midst of the chaos, carrying them off to the wasteland that hides District 13. 

-

Steve sat alongside Bucky, enjoying the feel of Bucky’s arm against his hot skin. They all have their scars, of a kind, from the arena but Bucky’s the most visible. People find it easy to overlook Steve and his too perfect face, Bucky’s metal arm is harder to ignore. It was designed to mirror what his arm had looked like the last moments of his games, flesh and weapon made one. 

Steve has never asked why Bucky keeps it, why even in District 13 as they prepare to go against the Capitol he hadn’t asked for it to be replaced. There are things that they will never talk about. 

Fury needs symbols, to front his army against the Capitol, and the surviving victors had agreed to fill that role, for the most part. Jane was better suited to remaining behind the front lines, but the others were all willing to fight. 

At least now they had a chance to fight against the right people.

**Author's Note:**

> I considered various ways to fuse the two together - and ultimately settled on this (I have too much love for all the avengers to decide how to combine them in one games - so I figured AU 75th Games worked best :))


End file.
